Giants Debate When It's OK to Laugh It Off

The Giants sideline is a busy, workmanlike place, such as during this preseason game against the Bears last August.
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By

Aditi Kinkhabwala

Updated Dec. 3, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

OK, so there's no crying in baseball. But what about laughing in football? Is that allowed?

"Not if you're not playing well," lineman Rich Seubert said.

"Of course it is. We're not a bunch of stiffs out there," running back Brandon Jacobs countered.

"It depends," linebacker Michael Boley said, hedging and not helping out either of his Giants teammates.

Laughter and its appropriateness went viral this week after Cardinals quarterback Derek Anderson was caught by cameras smiling on Arizona's sideline Monday night. The Cardinals were down by 18 points in the fourth quarter of what would be a 27-6 pasting by the 49ers, and Mr. Anderson's sharing a laugh with right guard Deuce Lutui infuriated television analyst and former Super Bowl-winning coach Jon Gruden.

Then when a reporter later asked what the two players were laughing about, especially in light of its being the team's sixth straight loss, Mr. Anderson unleashed an expletive-laced tirade, which set off a varying range of reactions in the Giants locker room.

"Our quarterback would never do that," linebacker Jonathan Goff said. (No, he did not say that because Eli Manning is rarely seen laughing in public at all.)

"If I looked over and saw Rich and Eli smiling," right guard Chris Snee said, "I'd think Rich probably told him a joke to try to relax him."

In that sense, defensive end Justin Tuck said sideline laughs are a necessary part of the game. One of the Giants' three captains, he was lauded this past weekend for a fiery halftime speech. He said taking a team's temperature sometimes means poking out a giggle.

"No one plays good when they're moping around. I want guys to be high-spirited," Mr. Tuck said. "If I see someone hanging his head, I may go over and say 'Hey, did you see that running back run me over?' just to break the tension."

Mr. Jacobs pulled out just such a story of that happening to him. It was his rookie year, the Giants were down to the Cowboys in Dallas and he'd fumbled the ball just shy of the end zone.

"I'll never forget it. I come to the sideline and I'm about to start crying and Jeremy Shockey just starts cursing this and cursing that," Mr. Jacobs said. "Then he said something about Coach Coughlin and I just started dying [laughing]. If a camera caught me, I'd have been toast."

"Support, encourage, be there for each other," Mr. Coughlin said. "Make sure that everyone is fully into the game and engaged in the game."

The sideline, after all, isn't a place for a break so much as just a site of more work. Once off the field, the different units—offense and defense—huddle on the bench around their coach, to look at the immediate play snapshots they get.

They make corrections. They talk to one another, and sometimes, left guard Kevin Boothe said, "we'll peek past the offensive line coach to watch the defense."

Mr. Boothe's first year in the NFL came with the Raiders and ended in a 2-14 record. He acknowledged that staying totally engaged is not so easy "when you know you're out of the playoffs in October." But still, he said, "At the end of the day, this is your livelihood. You want to play well and be serious about playing well, regardless of the situation."

Sure, there's some looking in the stands, especially if there's a fight.

And yes, Mr. Jacobs said jokingly that if he catches younger running back Ahmad Bradshaw scoping out the crowd, he only asks, "Where's the pretty girl?" so he can look too. (At least we think he was joking.)

Still, Mr. Tuck said he can see why Hall of Fame basketball player Magic Johnson watched Mr. Anderson's smile and then, on a late-night television show this week, said if he were his teammate, "He would've been cut today."

"We don't want that guy here if he's not serious about us and what we're doing," Mr. Tuck said. "You can laugh, but you have to come right back to the field."

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